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3 interactive tasks

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What it’s for: Helping people see how many ways metaphors can be used to communicate a single idea. It also helps people recognize cliche metaphors.

How it works: Each player gets a pen and paper. A judge (who also works as the timer) then provides a literal description of a subject or object. The players must then write down as many ways as they can think of to express that idea using metaphors. The time limit is 3 minutes.

Once time is up, each person reads their metaphors aloud. If anyone else has the same metaphor, each player strikes that metaphor off their list. The judge determines if a metaphor is really a metaphor, if it accurately makes the description, and if two metaphors are similar enough that they cancel each other out. For each unique metaphoric description at the end of the round, the player gets one point.

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What it’s for: Helping people understand the difference between literal and figurative language.

How it works: You play the literally game in much the same way you play “Popcorn.” One person starts telling a story. When they want to pass off the story, however, they simply use a metaphor. The next person then begins their part of the story by saying, “Literally,” and explaining how the apparent metaphor was not really a metaphor at all—directing the story from there.

For example:

Person 1: “I was excited to see her again. I’d always carried a torch for her.”
Person 2: “Literally. She and I spent a lot of time exploring caves, and I always had to carry the torch. I wondered if she would want to go exploring caves that night, but mostly I felt concerned. She had broken my heart before.”
Person 3: “Literally. She had electrocuted me by accident when we were playing with electronics, and it damaged my heart so bad that I had to get a transplant. I was still mad at her. She was a fat old cow.”
Etc.

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What it’s for: Showing how terrible mixed metaphors are.

How it works: This game resembles Apples to Apples. One player is the judge each round. They start a metaphor, and each other player has to provide a mismatched conclusion to the statement that makes the original metaphor into a mixed metaphor. The judge then decides which mixed metaphor is the worst (making the full metaphor silly, nonsensical, or otherwise bad). Whoever came up with that metaphor gets a point. The first person with 5 points wins.

For example:

The judge provides the metaphor: “The thought was lightning.”
Player 1 offers: “The thought was lightning that froze me in my tracks.”
Player 2 offers: “The thought was lightning that shot a bullet straight through me.”
Player 3 offers: “The thought was lightning that made my legs turn to jelly.”
Player 4 offers: “The thought was lightning that had the taste of honey.”
The judge decides that they like player 2’s mixed metaphor the best, so player 2 gets a point.

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“Hope is the thing with feathers—that perches in the soul.”

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William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (1597). 

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William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (1597). 

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“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!”

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William Golding, Lord of the Flies (1954). 

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William Golding, Lord of the Flies (1954). 

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“The sun in the west was a drop of burning gold that slid near and nearer the sill of the world.”

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Literature is full of creative metaphors, the best of which demonstrate the power of this literary device when wielded with skill. Here are a few metaphor examples:

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A mixed metaphor is a combination of two or more metaphors that are incompatible. The effect is often humorous. Whether it is intentional or unintentional depends on one’s grasp of how metaphors work. Some examples of mixed metaphors include “Not the sharpest cookie in the cookie jar”; “A watched clock never boils”; and “A rolling stone is worth two in the bush.”

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A dead metaphor is a type of metaphor that has shifted meaning over time due to overuse. Dead metaphors don’t convey an image in the mind the same way that standard, implied, or visual metaphors do, because their original interpretation has long been lost (and for this reason, some argue that dead metaphors are no longer metaphors at all).

However, we still instantly recognize their meaning. Examples of dead metaphors include “kicking the bucket”; “melting pot”; and “body of work.”

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To infuse some uncertainty into a situation. 

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To infuse some uncertainty into a situation. 

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As much as a metaphor can help illuminate a thought or scene, it can also help to give it a touch of mystery. For example, if you’d like to hint to the reader that there’s something ominous about a location, you could use a metaphor: “The forest at night was beautiful. The trees were black knife-slices, the moon a bone rising in the sky.”

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Sometimes, what you need the reader to understand can’t be described in a few sentences—you just need to show them what you mean. In such instances, a metaphor works best. For example, you might want to show why your main character is frustrated with his wife. Instead of spending time describing her tedious behavior, you can have your character compare her to the lights in their apartment—easily switched on and off.

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At their most basic, metaphors are used to make a direct comparison between two different things, in order to ascribe a particular quality to the first. But beyond simple comparison, metaphors have two clear purposes that will strengthen your writing:

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An extended metaphor is a version of a metaphor that extends over the course of multiple lines, paragraphs, or stanzas of prose or poetry. Extended metaphors build upon simple metaphors with figurative language and more varied, descriptive comparisons.

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A visual metaphor compares one thing to a visual image that suggests an association. Visual metaphors are commonly used in advertising—for example, a car manufacturer picturing their latest sports car alongside an image of a panther. The metaphor is used to suggest the car is as slick, fast, and cool as the wild animal.

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An implied metaphor is a type of metaphor that compares two things that are not alike without actually mentioning one of those things. For example, “A woman barked a warning at her child.” Here, the implied metaphor compares a woman to a dog, without actually mentioning the dog.

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A standard metaphor is one that compares two unlike things using the basic construction X is Y. Shakespeare’s line “All the world’s a stage” is a standard metaphor.